Pixar and Collective Creativity

PAUL MICHELMAN: Is it true that good ideas are more rare and more valuable than good people? Hello, I’m Paul Michelman from Harvard Business Digital, and that’s one of the questions we’ll be asking of our guest today, Ed Catmull. Co-founder and president of Pixar and president of Disney Animation Studios, Ed is also the author of a September Harvard Business Review article entitled, “How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity.” Ed, thanks so much for taking the time to talk today.

ED CATMULL: You’re welcome. It’s a pleasure.

PAUL MICHELMAN: Ed, before I ask you to address the question that I opened the show with, I was hoping that you could define for us what creativity is at Pixar. How do you define it?

ED CATMULL: Actually, it’s a very hard thing to answer. We are trying to do something new when we create. That’s the underlying concept when you create. It’s new. It’s unexpected. So by definition, if it’s new and unexpected, then you don’t know quite where it’s going, where the ideas are coming from. And so for us, we don’t focus so much on an idea as focusing on a community of creative people with creative leadership as there was somebody guiding this.

And the job of the leadership and of the directors is to provide a vision, but then encourage hundreds of people to generate ideas. The director then picks and sorts through the ideas to find those that fit into this overall vision of where the film going. But even that overall vision will change in the process of making it, because of the ideas that have come up.

PAUL MICHELMAN: So, Ed, let’s double back now to that opening question. And I think you began the answer it already, and we can hear where you’re going. But what is the most important thing in the creative process, that opening idea that sparks everything, or the processes and people who see it through?

ED CATMULL: Well, for us it’s extremely clear. There are so many ideas that go into making a film that it’s incorrect to think that there is an idea, and therefore it’s the most important thing. In fact, what you need is a group of people who are generating the literally thousands of ideas that go into a film. There’s a huge misconception that there’s a single idea in a film, and if people think of a single idea, then they will focus on that single idea. But our view is, there isn’t a single idea. Therefore the people are the most important things, because they’re the ones that have to solve the problems and come up with the thousands of ideas that finally come together.

And I don’t think this is just filmmaking. I think it’s true with products. People look at a product and they think, oh, gee, that’s a clever device, without truly appreciating all of the engineering and the design that went into it to finally make this thing which they think of as a single entity.

PAUL MICHELMAN: So, Ed, what’s the leader’s role in all this, particularly with respect to managing all of the risks associated with a creative process like this?

ED CATMULL: Well, the first thing to note is that we’re supposed to be taking risks, so we don’t think of risk management as trying to minimize risk. That’s actually the way to prevent creativity. Rather, it’s to do risky things, and then when they go in some unpredicted path, to be able to respond to it. So our job as managers is to create not only a community but a way that that community works together, so they can solve the problems that are coming up that are unforeseen. If you’ve got the good community, they will solve these problems. So for us, it’s clear, it’s building the community and putting elements in place so that community is vibrant and healthy.

PAUL MICHELMAN: So let’s talk about some of those elements. Let’s talk about some of the core tenets that you’ve developed to shepherd this process. You note in the article that everyone at Pixar must have the freedom to communicate with anyone. How do you carry out something like that?

ED CATMULL: Well, the first thing we do is try to talk to all new employees coming into the company, to go over the history of Pixar and the lessons we’ve learned and the mistakes we’ve made. Because we’ve made a lot of mistakes, and we continue to make mistakes. But one of the things we explain to people is that while what we’re doing is very highly organized, we do not confuse the organizational structure with the communication structure. The communication structure means that everybody needs to be able to talk with anybody else at any time.

For me, an open door policy doesn’t mean that my door’s open all the time, it should mean that everybody’s door is open. And the truth is, you have to work at that. Because people coming in, especially to a successful organization, will respect it or they may defer to it. And you actually don’t want them to fall into the trap to think that everything we’re doing is right, because we’ve been successful. The fact is we’re always doing something that’s wrong, or we’re always doing something that’s new, and so we need everybody to communicate what they think.

A corollary to that is, we need people to be honest with each other about everything. And if everybody is honest, it actually makes it easier for people to be honest. There’s not a penalty for disagreeing. That’s one thing I like about the culture, is that people will frequently disagree with me. And frequently I am wrong, but if they disagree with me– and I’ll say this with John Lasseter or with the directors– the directors don’t take that personally. They take that as, that person is expressing what they see. There’s not a penalty for saying that. And because there’s not a penalty, people are more likely to say what they think. And hearing the sum of all those opinions then helps the leaders to select through the path of things that need to be done.

PAUL MICHELMAN: Are there specific things you do to make people feel safe to offer up opinions?

ED CATMULL: Well, actually, there are a few things that we do. One of the things was something that John brought from Disney, and also we learned when we were at Lucasfilm. And that is, we have dailies where everybody presents their work to their colleagues. Now, each group is different, and in some of our groups it’s very successful, and in some we’re still struggling with how to do it the right way. So I don’t ever mean to imply that we’ve got all this figured out. But I will give an example of one area where it works spectacularly well. And that’s with animation.

The animators show their incomplete work to each other every day. And there’s several advantages to that. One of them is that people naturally have a tendency to not want to show incomplete work, especially to colleagues who are considered the best in the world. But the truth is, if you show your incomplete work and everybody does it, then you get used to it, and cease to be embarrassed by it and actually become more creative. The other thing that happens is, when people see each other’s work as it’s developing, they all learn from each other, and they inspire each other.

So it becomes an open environment and people become hooked on it. They really like the fact that they’re going in there and giving comments. They still have ownership on their own piece, but with that ownership, they then welcome comments from a lot of different people in the room. And then hearing all the comments, in the end, the director will make a decision as to what fits in the movie. But that process is one of trust and openness, and it works spectacularly well.

PAUL MICHELMAN: That runs counter, I think, to a lot of people’s instincts. And that is that you want to perfect an idea yourself before sharing it with other people, for fear of how they will react to an idea that still is rough around the edges. So you’ve obviously been able to develop a culture that makes people feel safe and open doing this. That strikes me as something that might be a bit different from some other movie studios, where that free-agent mentality takes hold, that people don’t feel like perhaps they’re in it together quite as much. So when you are hiring people from outside– in other words, you’re not bringing people in for their first job– how do you screen for the personality type that you think is going to fit in Pixar?

ED CATMULL: Well, obviously, we do the normal things in terms of interviewing and seeing if the personality is right. We hire a lot of people from outside of the industry, to be honest, and part that’s because we’re up here, and so when we hire, we bring in a lot of students or people from other places. We do hire from within the industry because we want to have new blood in here, but in fact what happens is the people that come here really like the style. I know it’s counterintuitive when they first get here, but once they get it, they love it, because it’s a community feeling.

We don’t have the forces in here that are taking some of our more talented people and separating them out from the people they work with. And it’s one of the unfortunate things in Hollywood– it’s just built into the structure– that there are some remarkably talented people down there, but the structure is that they have representation, and the representation’s goal is to essentially take their star and separate them out from others as to being critical to the project. And so, within the community, you’ve got elements which actually force it apart. And so that sort of collegial community is desirable, but it’s difficult for the studios to put it together that way.

But inside of our group here, we’ve got this ability to have some very talented people, and they feel that close to them are some people who are also talented, but we don’t have this gap that you sometimes see in other places.

PAUL MICHELMAN: OK, so you really are hiring people coming in with some understanding of what Pixar’s all about in terms of a community, and are really attracted to that. Does the physical separation of Pixar from Hollywood actually aid in that?

ED CATMULL: I think it does aid in it. And I like the fact that we’re up here. I like being down there, I had been associated with the community down there. I know the technical community quite well and there’s some really remarkable people and I love working with them. But it means going back and forth a lot on the airplane. So one wants to be fairly close, because a lot of remarkable talent is down there, but at the same time it’s nice to be here where we’re not buffeted by the larger community that’s down there.

PAUL MICHELMAN: Ed, how do you, as a leader, participate in the creative process? Do you?

ED CATMULL: Well, I occasionally give notes on films in development, and they take my notes as seriously as they do from anybody else in the company. But I’ll frequently think, well, that’s not a good thing to do, and they’ll listen to the note, and they’ll go off and do something else. And they know it’s OK. And that’s always been true, even with John Lasseter or Bob Iger or Steve Jobs. They’ll give their opinions on something, but they don’t override the director. The directors and the leadership team know that they’ve got the ability to make the final decisions on how the film work. And knowing that, it sets up a structure for them to make better decisions and feel confident and go out and do some risky things and finally pull it all together.

PAUL MICHELMAN: And I’d like to talk for a minute about your legacy. Clearly Pixar’s culture has a strong dose of you in it. You’ve been there from the beginning, you’ve been shaping the culture from the beginning. But you won’t be there forever. How are you ensuring that the culture will outlive you?

ED CATMULL: Well, there are several parts to that. On the creative side, one of the great things is that the creative leadership– starting with John, but with all the directors– are very inclusive and they want other people to succeed. So rather than this being a one-director studio which is centered around John, in fact we’ve got to Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird, Pete Docter, and several others who are encouraged to basically do things on their own. And we’ve got a program for bringing up directors and giving them experience in knowing what to do, so that we’ve got ongoing creative continuity.

On the management side, we’ve got some people here who aren’t well-known on the outside, but they’re younger than I am, and they have been part of that culture. So it isn’t all me. It’s just, there are people who’ve done these wonderful things. They really get it, and they’re driving a lot of the change now.

And so a lot of my job is to actually just let them make those changes as we grow as a company. And we do have a general manager of the studio, Jim Morris. Jim Morris used to be the president of ILM. And he’s really a remarkable person, and as a general manager, he’s a person that’s also guiding and leading this culture. So I feel very good about the fact that, if I get hit by a bus, there are people here who will keep going as we change as a company.

The one thing we try to be clear on is, things never stay the same. In fact, they’re not supposed to stay the same. They’re supposed to change. So we’re not trying to freeze anything in time. Instead we’re trying to make a culture where we respond creatively and positively as life changes. And at some point, I do move on, because I am getting older now. And one of my goals is to make sure that all the people here are just really good about changing the world in a positive way, and changing the company in a positive way.

PAUL MICHELMAN: Ed Catmull, thank you very much.

ED CATMULL: Thank you. My pleasure.

PAUL MICHELMAN: To learn more about Ed Catmull’s ideas on managing creativity, please read his September 2008 Harvard Business Review article, “How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity,” which you can find online at www.hbr.org.